I almost always leave the Queen Ant alive, since she summons very weak monsters and can quickly fill empty spaces with weak monsters. Late game, especially against Morgoth, she's more of a weakness to him than anything else.

I almost always leave the Queen Ant alive, since she summons very weak monsters and can quickly fill empty spaces with weak monsters. Late game, especially against Morgoth, she's more of a weakness to him than anything else.

I'll remember it for the next time, thanks ;D

And again: Thanks for alle the strategies. Right now my HE-warrior is cl37 on dl37 maxxing out stats. In the last 2 days I've slain Smaug (and avenged the former HE-warrior which he killed), Ariel, maias, a lesser Balrog, the Queen Ant and some other "harder" creatures, but all without too much trouble. +8 speed, Andúril and very good to excellent stealth really pays off.

A Max stat warrior is pretty much invulnerable to the likes of Smaug. Later on, warriors need to be a bit more careful of basic elemental attacks, as it only takes two shots at 533 damage to really wreck your day. (I think I only killed the Tarrasque once as a warrior, when I happened to have both fire and cold immunity.)

Nether and sound resistance are in the "nice to have" category: there are a number of monsters that breathe sound for 500 damage, and a handful that breathe nether for 500-550. (Dracolich, Omarax, Ossë)

Have had nasty experience with nether recently, first I was resting in a vault, Omarax woke up floated over to me and nethered me to death; he had to pass favourable hokeystick position, so he must have triple-moved for me not being able to react; I had like +16 speed and was left flabbergasted. Only on my next character did I realize that by accident the "disturb when visible monster moves" option was turned off.

My next character was fighting Osse, also in a minor vault, and when low on health I wanted to phase out and zap a rod of healing to preserve potions. The game couldnt find a location though and I was left standing; Osse didnt hesitate and netherbreathed.

That bug needs fixIng ASAP.
I have a new technique for uniques and the like when playing mage: Teleport away to recover HP/SP, and rest in the same +(favorable) location to continue the fight. Te improved pathfinding means the monster almost always will find its way back.
Used it in my most recent win vs Sauron, Ungoliant, and Ancalagon. I fought Sauron almost by accident, not realizing I was in dl 99, and with a very short stack of !Heal and !rMana. But I had plenty of wands of Drain life, which worked nicely.